1. Field
The described embodiments generally relate to the field of digital content items, and more specifically, to making user recommendations of digital content items based on knowledge of prior user sign-ons to online services.
2. Background
The ability of a digital content provider—such as a provider of digital videos, audio, or books—to anticipate the particular digital content items in which a user might be interested, and to provide recommendations of those digital content items to the user, greatly increases the value of the digital content provider to the user. Unlike in the physical world where consumers rent or purchase books, movies and other tangible content items in discrete packages from a constrained supply, in the digital world substantially greater content is available, typically at low or no cost, and the ability to recommend content to a consumer is particularly important. That is, the availability of resources enabled by the Internet creates problems without an offline analogue, and which require solutions that, equally, have no offline analogue. One challenge for the digital content provider is to identify the type of information about a user that will allow the content provider to predict the content items that would be of interest to that user, and to properly process that information in order to generate recommendations.
The figures depict embodiments of the present invention for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following description that alternative embodiments of the structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles of the invention described herein.